Health & Safety

Safety

Power/Electrical Connections

The radio unit is powered by a single “D” cell battery, which is warranted by the manufacturer to last 20 years.

Neither the water meter nor the radio-read transmitter attached to the water meter are connected to any electrical system, and so they are not affected by any electrical circuitry.

Health Questions

Radiation Emitting Electronic Products

Governed by the FDA, radiation-emitting electronic products are part of our daily lives and have been for decades.Nearly every home or work environment contains not merely one, but several radiation-emitting, electronic products.Our modern culture depends on them for everything from lighting rooms to watching TV and movies to listening to music on CD.

Non-ionizing, optical, radiation is used in:

Halogen lamps

Remote controls

Digital displays/monitors

Fluorescent lamps

UPC readers

Laser toys and novelties

Laser printers

Laser pointers

Fiber optic communications

CD and CD ROM players

DVD players

Auto focus cameras

Non-ionizing, radio frequency, electromagnetic frequency, microwave, and magnetic radiation is used in:

In June of 2011, the World Health Organization came out with a statement indicating that radiofrequency electromagnetic energy from cell phones is a possible carcinogen (Group 2B), based on a study coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer involving 14,000 people.

Other items in this class (Group 2B) include caffeine and talc-based powders.

The WHO's definition of this classification is:

“A positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer for which a

causal interpretation is considered by the Working Group to be credible, but chance, bias, or

confounding could not be ruled out with reasonable confidence.”

In other words, the agent could possibly be cancer causing, or the association between exposure to the agent

and cancer could just be chance or bias.

More recently, Oct. 21, 2011, a much larger study involving more than 358,400 people conducted by Danish researchers has found no difference in cancer rates between people who had used a cellphone for about a decade, and people who had not.

A Star Tribune article makes it clear that neither the FDA nor the FCC have found any evidence to suggest that cellphones are linked to cancer.

The article goes on to state that:

Cellphones send signals to nearby towers via radio waves, a form of energy similar to microwaves. But the radiation produced by cellphones cannot directly damage DNA and is different from stronger types of radiation like X-rays or ultraviolet light. At very high levels, radio frequency waves from cellphones can heat up body tissue, but that is not believed to damage human cells.

Supporting those findings, the National Cancer Institute states:

Although there have been some concerns that radiofrequency energy from cell phones held closely to the head may affect the brain and other tissues, to date there is no evidence from studies of cells, animals, or humans that radiofrequency energy can cause cancer. It is generally accepted that damage to DNA is necessary for cancer to develop. However, radiofrequency energy, unlike ionizing radiation, does not cause DNA damage in cells, and it has not been found to cause cancer in animals or to enhance the cancer-causing effects of known chemical carcinogens in animals.

One of the health concerns listed in information being disseminated throughout our service area is electromagnetic hypersensitivity. In some handouts being circulated, it has also been referred to as microwave or radio wave sickness. Some handouts only list possible symptoms.

No one questions the validity of such symptoms or the suffering of those individuals.

At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that: